Playing With Fire
by grannysknitting
Summary: It isn't every day that you come home to find John in the front room playing with fire. The Mage of London is IN. Warnings - will be a darker fic than normal
1. Chapter 1

**Playing With Fire**

**AN - set in the magic!John AU (See The Writing on the Wall) **

It wasn't every day that you came home to find John Watson in the front room, playing with fire. Not the kind of fire that meant matches or candles or standard combustion, but the kind of fire that was purple, floating in the air around him in long trails.

It was even more disturbing when you'd locked your front door this morning on the way to dropping your missus off for a girl's weekend with some old school mates. The fact that John didn't live in this house and had no reason to be here was also a cause for concern. Geoff was sure he'd locked the front door - it wasn't a mistake that a copper made - and he knew that John didn't have a key; few people did.

The fire was kind of beautiful and John's face was calmly intent as he moved around the front room in a kind of dance. If Geoff had to put the movements to music, it would have been cello and violin twined around each other in restless rhythm. John twirled and spun, placing each foot with especial care, ducking and weaving through the room with a thoroughness that spoke of a very particular intent. Geoff stood there, takeaway in hand, watching as Sherlock Holmes' lover-keeper-minder-friend danced around the comfortably worn furniture he and his wife had bought years ago. The purple fire was warm as it wafted past him, reflected in John's unseeing eyes, crackling the way a really good log fire does on a winter's day.

And then it was over. John's movements slowed and stopped. Now that he was still, Geoff realised that the doctor was breathing quite hard and soaked in sweat. The fire burned in a floating ring around him before John took a deeply sucking breath and it rushed into him, disappearing. The Mage of London - and that was who Geoff was dealing with here, not comfortable John Watson - shuddered and then straightened once more. Geoff judged that now might be a good time to announce his presence and cleared his throat gently.

"What the hell are you doing?" the question was mild and calm (something he was quite proud of) but John still jumped as if he'd shouted.

"Er... nothing," John's voice was weaker than Geoff would have liked to hear and the way the man was swaying on the spot boded ill for the upcoming conversation. Geoff stepped forward, intending to offer support but John jolted back and turned, bolting for the window faster than DI Lestrade would have thought possible. He was through it in a flash and over the fence and down the road before Geoff could get to his front door.

It wasn't until he got back to the front room that Geoff realised the window was shut.

**To be continued? Let me know!******

Disclaimer - characters and setting as depicted in the BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	2. Chapter 2

**Further Developments**

*What the hell is going on? LG*

*More data required. SH*

*Coming to Baker Street. BE THERE. LG*

All the way to Baker Street, Geoff turned over in his mind what John had been doing, or been trying to do. The whole thing with the window was more than a little unsettling, but the idea that John would just walk into Geoff's house like that... it was out of character for the man to say the least. Bad enough that Sherlock was an unpredictable maverick on a bad day, without John jumping into the act as well - Geoff had come to rely on John for a bit of sanity in the Yards dealings with the consulting duo. If John was going to chuck it in and go as mental as his flatmate they were all in for a time of trouble.

The door to 221B Baker Street was familiar and for a moment Geoff wondered if Sherlock had gone out just to be contrary. Then he saw the consultant at the window and let himself in with the key Mrs Hudson had given him ages ago. It saved her getting up for the evidence raids and let him reach Sherlock quickly in an emergency. He trudged up the stairs, his forgotten bag of take away still swinging from his hand.

"Now then Lestrade, if I'd known it was going to be a date I'd have lit a candle," Sherlock's greeting was sarcastic, or at least Geoff hoped it was. He didn't want John mad at him, "Precisely what has confused you now? How to get the lids off?"

"Shut it, Sherlock and sit down," Geoff frowned and shoved the thin man onto the couch. He'd never seen Sherlock look so bad whilst sober - huge dark rings under his eyes, his usually immaculate clothes rumpled and creased, his curls even wilder than usual. Geoff helped himself to two plates in the kitchen as well as cutlery - evidence raids had their uses - and split his meal between the two of them. Evidently, whatever was going on was taking its toll on Sherlock. With John currently absent, it fell to the DI to provide a spot of care for the thorn in his side.

It was a measure of how disturbed Sherlock really was that he took the plate without comment and polished it off. Geoff put both the empty plates away - left to Sherlock they'd be dropped under foot and broken by midnight - then returned to the couch where Sherlock was looking more alert as the food hit his system.

"I came home tonight to John in the front room, doing something with fire," Geoff stated in response to the slightly interrogative look he got. Moments later he was ducking as Sherlock launched himself from the couch and sped to a window, peering out at the street with thinly disguised need.

"You've seen John? How was he? Did he mention me? Why didn't you arrest him and bring him here?" the questions were spewed out in a torrent of words and Geoff sighed, wishing he had an answer. Obviously things were not as they seemed - John hadn't just popped by on a whim.

"He was... tired," Geoff thought back to the glimpse he'd had of Sherlock's best mate, "A bit pale and thin, really. I didn't have a chance to speak to him - he literally jumped through my window once he was done. Left the glass intact though."

Sherlock tutted impatiently and pounced on his phone, sending off a series of quick fire texts.

"Mycroft is useless - he says that he doesn't know where John is at all, and he won't show me the CCTV footage for your street either," Sherlock tossed the phone aside again, "I haven't seen John for nine days - he said he had an errand to run and didn't come home. Mycroft thinks he's left me."

There was an undertone of uncertainty in his voice that cried out for reassurance and Geoff felt moved to meet that requirement. It wasn't every day that Sherlock chose to show his human side - such things should be encouraged.

"His things are all still here," Geoff pointed out, "And he wouldn't leave you without telling you why. What I want to know is why you didn't file a missing persons report? We could at least have helped you look for him."

"I didn't anticipate the depth of Mycroft's hatred," Sherlock muttered, looking faintly disturbed at the notion that the mysterious elder brother could hate his partner so much, "As for filing a missing persons report, I thought it might interfere too much. John's errand wasn't Mundane..."

Geoff nodded as the thin genius trailed off. He'd suspected as much himself. The Mage of London had gone to work and hadn't come home - having the police force looking for him wouldn't have helped.

"Well, we can at least go back over the incident reports for the last nine days - maybe something there will help establish what he's up to," Geoff stood up and collected his coat, "Come on then, Sherlock."

Sherlock shook himself as if waking from a daze and leapt for the door, sweeping past Lestrade in a flurry of wool. Geoff swallowed his grin and followed along, pleased to see some energy return to the forlorn man.

To Be Continued...

Disclaimer - characters and settings as depicted in the BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Fate of the Mage**

**AN – discussion of vivisection (but not graphic) towards the end. FYI**

Lestrade makes Sherlock sit on the 'guest' chair and makes them both a tea before nicking the biscuits stashed in Sally's desk for when she was on the outs with Anderson. They're hobnobs, which he's noticed John slipping under Sherlock's nose from time to time and he almost has to count his fingers when Sherlock pounces on them as the thin man starts riffling through the files. Evidently comfort food was required as Sherlock tried to discern from the massive amounts of data that crossed Lestrade's desk every day what John was up to.

Making a mental note to replace Sally's stash - or let Sherlock tell her he'd eaten them and then stand back and watch the fire works - Geoff settled into his chair and pulled up the Yards system, logging onto the intranet and starting a tag search. Each file was tagged by type of crime and it seemed logical to him to pull any over the last thirty days that were related to the sort of thing he'd seen when trying to catch two kids that were murdering people to raise a demon. He didn't know what disturbed him more, the fact that the Yard had a series of tags that meant 'magic' or the fact that he was seriously using them to locate a magic practitioner.

Sherlock leapt from his seat and rummaged for the map that Geoff kept for cases with multiple crime scenes. It had seen a lot of use over the years and he'd had to replace it on an almost bi-monthly basis. More often if Sherlock borrowed it, as the consulting detective had a habit of writing all over it. He'd seen John buying maps too - multiples of the same one - which indicated how badly Sherlock treated the ones he had at home. Sherlock has yet to locate a pen, which might just save this one.

The computer beeps, drawing his attention. Three of the mentioned files are in the stack that Sherlock is waving loosely in one fist, and there are another four on Dimmocks desk. What Dimmock was doing with them was unclear to Geoff, but he heaved himself up and went to fetch them. Not for him, the electronic age: he preferred to hold the paper in his hand. Dimmock is there and he watches with narrow eyes as Geoff riffles the stack in front of him quickly, extracting the four he's looking for.

"Thanks," Geoff says and walks back to his office. Dimmock will either follow him and demand to know whats going on, or stay away in order to avoid Sherlock. Either way, Geoff doesn't mind. He can put it down to an unofficial missing persons case, hint that they're trying to protect John from dangerous elements by not making it official and still not be lying. After all, John _is_ missing, _is_ probably in trouble and definitely _wouldn't_ want an official fuss.

"You said he was looking pale?" Sherlock asks as Geoff hands over the files he'd filched. There is a world of information in the slightly too casual tone that the other man is using, and Geoff has to remind himself that Sherlock will not thank him if he tries to console him. The man in front of him is very dissimilar to the other victims who've misplaced a loved one - he will not want, or understand, emotional support when it's offered.

"He's unshaven," Geoff leant back on his desk and closed his eyes, the better to visualise John in his front room, "His clothes are wrinkled and a bit worn. He's been sleeping rough, when he sleeps. He was paler than normal too - like under the tan. He'd lost a bit of weight, but then he lost weight when he performed that monster spell the last time..."

"Shh!" Sherlock hissed, startling Geoff into opening his eyes. He gave the younger man an apologetic nod and took in the white knuckled grip that was crushing a file to death.

"I need to be able to read that, Sherlock," Geoff reminded him. It worked, the distraction served to calm Sherlock down and he actually smoothed the wrinkles out, "What have you found?"

"Not here," Sherlock muttered, "Come back to Baker Street."

Geoff eyed the stack of files for a moment and then nodded, deciding not to argue about the Yard's files staying at the Yard. He didn't want to deal with a tantrum or a sulk, knowing full well that Sherlock would get them back to Baker Street one way or another. He made the other man leave the map behind, though, out of sheer bloody mindedness. That gave Sherlock something to fume over in the cab, though he threw it off quickly enough once in the flat, rummaging for a map of his own and tacking it to the wall haphazardly. From the numerous pinholes in the wall, this was also a common occurrence. If Geoff had wallpaper this ugly in his front room, he'd probably be vandalising it too.

"I don't know _what_ John is facing, but I have an idea of _who_," Sherlock breathed, scribbling over the map with times and dates and little coded symbols that meant nothing to Geoff at first glance, "The first crime, _here_, was the killing of three kittens - they were vivisected and their entrails 'messed with'. Honestly, can none of your men be precise in their wording? I mean really..."

"We've none of us time to write the next 'War and Peace' Sherlock," Geoff reminded him pre-emptively, "And they wouldn't have understood what they were looking at."

"Someone was trying to read into the future," Sherlock replied, staring at Geoff in a discinctly unnerving fashion, "It's called Soothsaying. They sacrifice an animal and read the entrails - though how that works is beyond me."

"And John told you this? John _does_ this?" Geoff spluttered, and was immediately reassured when Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Of course not, Lestrade, don't be an idiot. I got into his books last month and managed to absorb a lot of information before he caught me. I was reading about this when he did and he told me flat out that he'd never sacrifice _anything_ for magic that wasn't already part of him," Sherlock ran a hand through wild hair and turned back to the map, "The second crime scene was a simple robbery. There are several stores around London that provide 'magical' supplies. Some are more credible than others, of course. The one that John sometimes pops around to was broken into and had several interesting ingredients and a couple of ceremonial objects stolen - though no knives."

"The kitten scene would have charged the knife being used - the practitioners would have taken it with them," Geoff recalled and ignored the proud look that Sherlock shot him for remembering that fact. Sometimes the bloke was a patronising git, and then there was now.

"Yes," Sherlock nodded, "Then we have a series of assults, with various things being taken from the victim. Blood - twice, hair, and in one case skin. That accounts for the four files that were on Dimmock's desk."

"But not why he had them," Geoff muttered and then expanded when Sherlock turned to stare at him, "It's a different unit that deals with that kind of assault. We're primarily homicide. No one died."

"Then why did Dimmock have them?" Sherlock frowned, "Interesting..."

"What's this last point?" Geoff asked, making a mental note of thw symbols they'd already covered. This was close to the first scene, both geographically and graphically.

"That's a file from Sally's desk. It's a cold case - I got it while you were battling the evils of modern technology," Sherlock smirked. Geoff rolled his eyes - he wasn't a complete lost cause when it came to computers, he just preferred not to mess about on them.

"It's another vivisection," Geoff muttered, "But not kittens this time, right?"

"A person, though it was written up as a drug related accident," Sherlock mused, "The victim was high on PCP and managed to run into a barbed wire fence on an old abandoned building site. He thrashed about and disembowled himself - or that was the conclusion at the Inquest. Death by misadventure and the case is still open. They didn't trace the source of the drugs."

"You think someone tried to read the future in his entrails?" the thought made Geoff queasy in the extreme. Sherlock shook his head. When he answered it was in a mournful voice that gave the DI chills. He never wanted to hear Sherlock so distressed again.

"He was, at the time, the Mage of London."

**TBC... (yes I am THAT evil!)**

Disclaimer - characters and settings as depicted in the BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	4. Chapter 4

**A Pact of Protection**

Geoff felt as if he'd been sucker punched. He grabbed the file and flipped through it quickly, hoping like hell that...

"Of course John wasn't in London when it happened," Sherlock's scorn was more withering than a flamethrower and harsher than an artic gale, "Have you met the man? I thought that you considered him a friend, certainly your behavioural cues have indicated this and John thought so too when I asked him..."

"Three years ago, Sally Donovan lost an Uncle. She never said and I never asked, but there were drugs involved somehow. This file is her Uncles file," Lestrade replied, "If I hadn't seen with my own eyes the way magic affected her, I'd have thought her a witch of some sort."

"The victim's last name is Pierce," Sherlock responded, "And that's her mothers' maiden name, of course. That doesn't explain Dimmock's interest in the four other files."

"No," Lestrade mused, "It doesn't. And he didn't say boo when I took the files, either."

"Dimmock," Sherlock leapt for the laptop - John's laptop - and fired it up, fingers flickering over the keyboard with lightning rapidity. Geoff frowned back at the map, content to let the other man invade his colleague's privacy. Plausible deniability was always preferable when it came to Sherlock and his hi-jinx. The map held no shapes that Geoff could discern, not chronologically, spatially or even geometrically.

"Your conclusion?" Sherlock asked as he came to stand at Geoff's shoulder, making the older man feel as if he was being tested by a particularly difficult teacher. He hated that feeling. It always made him want to punch someone. John would not approve if he punched Sherlock.

"More data required," Geoff shrugged, "If there is a pattern, I can't see it."

"Hmmm," Sherlock mumbled, which Geoff took as agreement. He tried not to let the shock of the occasion cause a heart attack, "Dimmock has no reason that I can find to be interested in these four files - at least no mundane reason."

"You think he's a warlock or a mage," Lestrade shook his head, thinking back to the last case involving magic: a case that had nearly cost John Watson his life, "Great. Dimmock was on loan to the Sutherland police at the time those two kids tried to summon a demon. He was out of town for all of those crime scenes."

"But not for Mr Pierce's death," Sherlock crossed his arms, squinting at the map in aggravation, "He was in uniform back then."

Geoff picked the file back up and went through it carefully, confirming that Dimmock wasn't mentioned in any of the reports. That didn't mean the man hadn't been involved, just that he'd had no official presence in the case. He was not naive enough to protest that Dimmock couldn't have been involved on the grounds that he was a policeman, which made it his job to catch criminals, not be criminals. He would never say it to Sherlock, but as with any large policing force, there were always bound to be bad apples in the barrel, just as there were in the magical community. He'd taken John's information to heart, because they both had the same problem.

"So to sum up - we don't know who, why, where, what or even if," Sherlock threw himself onto the couch, "The only lead we have is Dimmock, and he won't tell us about Magic because we're Mundane."

"He'd tell John," Geoff frowned, refusing to whine about how unfair it was that he couldn't just lock the other man up and throw away the key: also refusing to whine about being excluded from the club. He realised that Sherlock had done still and turned to look at the other man. Sherlock was in fact staring at him as if he was a prime steak and Sherlock a starving man.

"That's the smartest thing you've said in weeks," Sherlock breathed, "He _will_ tell John."

"John's not here, Sherlock," Geoff pointed out, promptly ruining the proud look that Sherlock was giving him.

"His phone and his laptop are," Sherlock shook his head, "Honestly!"

While the thin genius pounced after both items in question, Geoff took a moment to think about what that meant. John didn't exactly tote his laptop around with him, but the phone was always to hand - mainly because of Sherlock's rather insane texting habits. John had once said that Sherlock texted him more in a week than he spoke to him if the mood was right. Lestrade couldn't imagine putting up with that; his wife _certainly_ wouldn't.

"Send these words, exactly," Sherlock handed John's phone to the DI, as John didn't have Dimmock's number in his phone. Geoff pulled out his own, texted Dimmock's number to John, saved the contact and then called up the right menu, all while Sherlock fairly vibrated beside him with impatience. The thin genius had already sent the email he'd been typing off - doubtless from John's account to Dimmock's public one, warning him that a text was incoming. It made sense to do so, after all John would not want to discuss Magic on the Yard's email server.

"Ok, now send: 'Conclusions on the four files' and sign it 'JW'," Sherlock instructed and whirled away to the kitchen while Geoff did it. From the rattles and bumps it was apparent he was making tea, and when John's text alert went off the curly haired man appeared with two cups of tea, one of which he stuffed into Geoff's hand as he snatched the phone back.

"Bugger," was the bitter reply, and Geoff caught the phone as it was tossed back to him. The message on the screen read 'Not your business, Holmes'. Geoff was impressed that the DS had seen through the ruse. He sipped his tea, only mildly surprised to find it the way he liked and then glanced at his watch.

"Better to deal with him in the morning, Sherlock. It's nearing midnight now," Geoff slurped a last mouthful and waved the half empty mug at the other man, "Thanks for the tea. Be at the office at eight and we'll have a crack at Dimmock in person."

Sherlock nodded, huddled in his armchair with the tea balanced on up drawn knees, a faintly forlorn look on his face. It was slightly reminiscent of a child bereft of a parent and Geoff had to be stern with himself to avoid responding to that. Instead, he finished the tea on the way to the kitchen and let himself out.

As he entered his own house, with a cautious weather eye for practitioners of magic, the phone started to ring. Immediate thoughts of accidents involving his wife, or the kids that were staying with their maternal grandparents this week, began cycling through his mind, pushing Sherlock and his problems clean out of them. It took an act of will to actually pick the phone up, he was dreading the news on the other end so badly, which was why it came as such a shock when the cultured tones of the other Holmes brother wafted from the receiver.

"I take it Sherlock was not too rude, Inspector."

"He's devastated," Geoff replied before his internal filters could realign themselves, "He says you're refusing him help."

"Quite right," Mycroft Holmes replied, "Have you realised what the phone in the flat means?"

"John's trying to protect Sherlock from something," Geoff leaned against the wall tiredly, in no mood for games. He'd worked that out at once. With the phone, there was a chance that Sherlock would find a way to track John, even without his brothers' assistance. There was also a good chance that John had left his wallet somewhere safe too - relying on a store of cash or the charity of strangers to survive while he was gone.

"Correct," Mycroft replied, "I think you know how I feel about John Watson, Inspector, however when he came to me and requested that I refuse to help my brother for his own good... that was one action I could endorse."

"So what, you're going to stop me from helping Sherlock too? Because I'm telling you now, I won't," Geoff replied, and there was a faint chuckle on the other end.

"Oh I'm not so foolish as to believe that you would be disloyal to my brother," Mycroft replied, "But I am warning you that you will be held responsible for him."

The dial tone sounded suddenly in Geoff's ear, but he didn't hang up straight away, wanting one thing perfectly clear to the man he knew was still listening on the other end, BT dial tone or not.

"John beat you to it, Mr Holmes: it's always been understood between us that Sherlock needs a keeper."

TBC

Disclaimer - characters and setting as depicted in BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sibling Rivalry**

At five in the morning, Geoff Lestrade had a brainstorm. He jolted awake and sat up, missing at once the quiet murmur of his missus, who had learned to sleep through his sudden bolts of inspiration with nothing more than a sleepy mumble and pat of the hand.

John had a family - a sister at the very least. Magic wasn't something you learned, it was something that you had to have an innate talent for - John himself had said that. Therefore it was more than likely to be a genetic trait, which meant that either his parents or his sister also had this talent. John's parents had never been mentioned, not even in passing, but John had more than once been called away to deal with his alcoholic sister.

Geoff got up and started preparing for the day. It was unlikely that Sherlock had slept much, so popping around to Baker Street at this time of the morning wouldn't disturb him too much.

He made time to have a quick breakfast, though. Sherlock might run on the whiff of an oily rag, but Geoff needed food to function. As he was heading down the hall to the front door someone knocked rather boisterously. Suppressing the urge to swear, Geoff hurried the last few feet and opened the door, ready to give whoever it was a piece of his mind. Just because he was up didn't mean that it was acceptable for people to knock that loudly this early in the morning!

"Ah good, you're up. Tea, please, Lestrade, and Miss Watson here will need coffee - copious amounts of coffee," Sherlock breezed in as if Geoff wasn't there, towing a fuming woman with him, who reeked of alcohol, stale smoke and sweat. She looked nothing like John – her hair was long, her figure slender and sleek and her face oddly free of the lines and wrinkles that gave John such character. They shared familial traits of course, but no one would look at Harriet Watson and immediately associate her with John. It wasn't until he turned from closing the door that he realised she was in cuffs.

"Sherlock! You can't go about cuffing civilians!" Geoff barked, searching for his keys.

"She wouldn't come with me unless I did so," Sherlock explained in a reasonable voice. Miss Watson, who was bloodshot and clearly less than sober, perked up from her indifference at the mention of her captor's name.

"You! The infernal flatmate! I should have known it!" she hissed, "Let me out of these sodding things, you lunatic! Where's John?"

"That is the trouble, Miss Watson," Sherlock eyed her sternly, "Your brother is missing and we need your help. You must sober up first, though. I always find dealing with drunks a tiring nuisance."

Geoff sighed and put the kettle back on to make the required coffee and tea, grateful that he had supplies in. He piled a plate with hobnobs, shoved the tea in Sherlock's hand and then started making another round of toast. That went to Harriet Watson, who hunched over her cup of coffee with a baleful glare. The kitchen was fairly silent for a good half hour, in which Geoff made three more cups of coffee, two more of tea and a third round of toast.

Once Sherlock deemed Harriet - Harry as she preferred - to be sober enough, he laid out the details they had gathered about John's disappearance.

"What makes you think I can help?" Harry asked sullenly, "I'm not a Witch any more. Not after what They did to me."

"They?" Geoff asked, shooting Sherlock a quelling glare, which he actually accepted and sat quietly under, "Who do you mean?"

"When I was fourteen, I was abducted. There were four of us in that hell, and they only had us for seventy two hours. Long enough to sample our skin and blood and our very marrow. Long enough to feed us enough drugs to burn the magic out of us. I think they'd have killed us after that, if John hadn't turned up. My little brother, riding in like a knight in shining bloody armour. He took that place apart, got us out. Couldn't get me out of the bottle, though. Tried and failed."

"Not something to be proud of," Sherlock's dry comment startled her, as if she'd never considered her drinking to be anything but laudatory. She squinted at him, slumped in her chair, before a slow smile crawled over her face. It wasn't a nice smile.

"You're boffing him, aren't you? That's the only reason you put up with him. He says you're a genius, and maybe you are, but I bet you'd drop him if he wasn't a good lay," her oily tone made Geoff want to hit her and he had to restrain Sherlock from reaching for her when the thin man's face contorted with a sudden fury.

"This is beside the point," Geoff warned Sherlock, "And Miss Watson, shut it. I'll not have that sort of discussion under my roof. Is that clear?"

"Sure," Harry shrugged, "Whatever you say, gov."

"If we tell you what we know, will you help us?" Geoff pressed on, hoping Sherlock would keep his mouth shut a bit longer. He'd never seen the genius in such a lather - not even at a crime scene when Anderson was at his very worst. Mild irritation and scorching contempt were the worst Anderson had ever faced at Sherlock's hands - Harry Watson was facing wrath.

"No," Harry replied, "It's nothing to do with me, that world. Not my business, not my problem."

"It's your brother, for god's sake! You'd turn your back on him?" Geoff forgot all about being the voice of reason in his shock and distaste. He might argue with his sister from time to time, but they always knew that if they needed the backup of their sibling, that sibling would be there with bells on.

"Sure, why not? It's not like he's beating my door down lately. To busy being screwed through the mattress by his genius..." Harry broke off with a yelp as Geoff pulled her chair out and hauled her to her feet, hustling her out of the kitchen and along the hall, hearing the crash of breaking china as he did so.

"Good day to you, Miss Watson," he wrenched the front door open, thrust her through and then slammed it shut, slipping the deadbolt on as a further deterrent. Chances were that it would only slow the consulting detective down for a few seconds, but it was the best he could do.

Sherlock was still in the kitchen, though, looking at the mess he'd made of Geoff's plates and mugs. The DI sighed, glanced at the clock and went for the dustpan and brush. Sherlock didn't move from where he was leaned in the corner, his back to the room. The tension in the thin frame was palpable and barely lessened while Geoff cleaned up the mess, glad that all the biscuits had been eaten at least. He finished tidying up and then leaned against his table, watching the tension in the corner for another ten minutes. Privately, he was thanking his lucky stars that he hadn't had the chance to suggest seeking out John's sister to the man quivering with rage and frustration in the corner. Once he was certain that merely speaking to Sherlock wouldn't get him killed, he cleared his throat gently.

"It's beginning to look like Dimmock is our best bet," Geoff muttered, "He knows you tried to get information out of him yesterday, so he'll be suspicious if I call him into my office this morning. I'm open to suggestions about how we approach him."

"Mycroft," Sherlock muttered, "I'll make him help."

"No, you won't," Geoff sighed and managed not to flinch as the other man swung around to glare at him, "Before you start shouting, hear me out. Mycroft called me here last night. He told me that John had contacted him the day he disappeared and made your brother promise not to keep track of him. He wanted you kept safe."

"Then we have to crack Dimmock," Sherlock was white lipped with rage. Geoff nodded; thinking that one look at the state Sherlock was worked up to would be enough to crack the DS at once.

TBC…

Disclaimer – characters and setting as depicted by BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	6. Chapter 6

**Coming to an Understanding**

It was a close run thing, but Geoff managed to get Sherlock into the station and into his office without the other man encountering any of the usual irritants. Sherlock once again appeared to be his usual cold and aloof self, but Geoff knew better than to trust that. The man was a consummate actor and more than capable of feigning indifference - it was one of the reasons that Geoff never took the consultants apparent boredom with a case personally.

Sally was in, unlocking her desk drawers and going through her files. It was likely that she'd notice the missing file soon and Geoff made a note to speak to her later. Sherlock was once more standing in a corner of his office, his whole body taut and still, like a serpent coiled for action. A moment of checking on the system showed one new report added to Geoff's search - he'd left it on active status, so it would continue to trawl through the files for the duration of this mess - and he pulled it up, printing a copy and flicking through it.

Last night, while he'd been struggling with Sherlock's lack of information, another 'magic' crime had occurred. This one had taken place on Tower Hill, actually sited in the ruins of the Roman Wall just across the road from the Tower of London. Candles had been burnt, as had something else in a small fire. The CCTV in the area had been disabled and whoever it was had used the maintenance access to get into and out of the site. Forensic details were still to come, but the initial reports indicated that whatever had been burned in the fire was animal, and the composition of the candles was unlike those that could be bought in a store. Lestrade had a hunch that they were on the edge of the main action - whatever had been building up was about to break in earnest. He handed Sherlock the report, mainly to distract the man and also to give him something concrete to fume about, then stepped out of the office towards Donovan's desk. Better to let Sherlock fume in private for a bit.

"Donovan, I took a file from your desk yesterday," the DI made no apologies for his actions, nor did he intend to give her a detailed explanation. She wasn't a magic user and he had no idea if she knew anything about her Uncle's status. Now was not the time to get into that - nor was it his place to break John's cover either, "It's connected to something I'm working on - or we think it is. I'll have it back to you in a few days."

"Uh, sir, that's my uncles file..."

"Yes, I know who he is. Do I need to remind you that guidelines state that any officer who is connected to a crime victim is not to investigate said crime?" a mild rebuke, but it would put her off balance for a few days. Hopefully everything would be sorted out by then - he couldn't see Sherlock lasting at this level of tension for much longer and intended to have words with Watson about it once they'd recovered him from where ever he'd gone.

There was a movement at the door and Geoff glanced up in time to see Dimmock's arrival. He sensed more than saw Sherlock's movement behind him and stepped quickly in the way, letting the thinner man bounce off him into the wall and using the resulting confusion to get to Dimmock first. He had the young DS by the elbow and halfway to the small briefing room before either Sherlock or Dimmock had time to recover. The room he had in mind had no windows looking into the office and was fairly soundproof with a lockable door. If there was going to be any shouting, or discussion of magic, then his glass office would be too public for it. Better to contain things for now.

"What the hell are you doing, Lestrade?" Dimmock was entitled to that shot as he wrenched his arm free. Sherlock whirled into the room and locked the door, pressing himself back against it and looking Dimmock over with a sharp eye.

"Dimmock, we need to know what it is you're doing about the current magic situation," there was a sentence Geoff never thought he'd be uttering to a fellow Yarder. Dimmock's face was priceless, a sort of stunned embarrassment trying to pass for blank and covering for some quick thinking. The boy would have to learn to control his face better if he was going to work with Sherlock Holmes, but that was a tip for another time.

"Magic, sir? Are you feeling well?" Dimmock managed a very credible attempt at concern for a colleague who'd suddenly gone off the rails, but Geoff had no time or patience for messing about. He had a feeling that things were about to heat up very quickly and they needed to be ready.

"We know that you're a user of magic," Sherlock said impatiently, "And we know something big is about to happen. We know this because John Watson, my John, is missing."

"Dr Watson?" the question was not quite the right tone of curiosity and surprise. Dimmock knew that Watson was also a user of magic, though Geoff wasn't sure that John had ever identified himself as a Mage to the DS. From what Geoff understood, there were magical markers around Baker Street to let other users know that there was a Mage in the area, but there was no name or precise address attached to that information. John liked his anonymity - he'd once told Geoff that even the London Librarian, the pink haired witch that maintained the magic collection in the British Reading Room, didn't know his name, just his status.

"Dimmock, we don't have time for you to pretend, and you're not fooling anyone as it is. We need to know what's going on - John's in trouble and we need to find him," Geoff thought a direct appeal would work better with his junior officer than a verbal bludgeoning from Sherlock and it seemed his instincts were right as Dimmock visibly wavered.

"I'm not supposed to talk about this with people outside the community," Dimmock offered feebly, "We're supposed to work under the public's notice."

"He's _my John,_" Sherlock breathed, as if the words would compel the other man to do what he wanted. Although Geoff understood the depth of feeling and need beneath that statement, the other man would not. He didn't have the same level of experience with Sherlock and his apparent lack of emotions that Geoff did.

"Dimmock, I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you realise quite how involved Sherlock and I are..." Geoff begun, but Dimmock shook his head.

"Just because you already know, because Dr Watson decided to waive that requirement for you, doesn't mean that I should," he butted in, nervously eyeing the Yards cross to bear. The man was practically vibrating where he stood, dark curls rioting like waves of energy from his head. Geoff had never seen him so agitated.

"We both belong to Dr Watson, Dimmock," Geoff interrupted before Sherlock could explode, using a flash of insight to try and tip the scales in their favour, "We're as deep in the community as it's possible to get for two mundanes."

"Both of you?" Dimmock spluttered, "I thought you were married?"

"What?" Geoff was sidetracked for a moment and then flushed angrily. He'd never betray his wife and family like that and despised those that did - it made working with Anderson difficult at times. "How dare you! I'd never do that to my wife! Sherlock is John's lover, true enough, but I am most certainly not!"

"Then I don't understand how you can claim to belong to him," Dimmock frowned. Geoff glared and explained about the protection that John had placed upon him months ago, and the incident of only two days ago, when he'd found the Mage of London in his front room, playing with fire. Dimmock frowned and shook his head.

"Can you show me what he was doing?" the request was not a welcome one and Geoff shot Sherlock a warning look before mimicking some of the movements he'd seen John performing. He stopped after about thirty seconds, looking up to see Dimmock pale in recognition.

"That's a... what colour was the flame?"

"A deep plum colour," Geoff sighed, "Two long ribbons of it, trailing out from his hands."

"He set fire to his own blood;" Dimmock nearly retched, "That's a protection spell for you and your family. It's a permanent protection. You really do belong to him."

"You need to help us find him, Dimmock," Geoff said it calmly, not letting the other mans distress affect him outwardly. Inwardly he was in turmoil... the idea of John setting fire to his own blood was terrifying; the fact that it had been done to protect him and his family was humbling.

"What do you have already?" Dimmock gave up the fight, "Apart from the files you took from my desk?"

"It's all at Baker Street," Sherlock spoke up, seeming much calmer now that the DS had agreed to help them, "We thought it would be more secure there."

"Let's go then," Dimmock replied, "If that sort of protection is being laid down, then something big is on the horizon."

Geoff refrained from rolling his eyes at the obviousness of that statement. Sherlock was not so restrained.

TBC...

Disclaimer - settings and characters as depicted in BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	7. Chapter 7

**Bad News for London**

Because he was not an idiot, Geoff had sent in a request to be CC'd with the forensics report. He made Sherlock set up the laptop for him - the thin man had been accessing the Yard's system for years but this was the first time that Lestrade publicly acknowledged that - so that he could keep an eye on his email. While they waited, Dimmock went through the files and looked over the map on the wall. Lestrade explained the symbols attached to each location while Sherlock alternately paced and pounced on the laptop, checking for updates to John's blog, Lestrade's email and half a dozen other sites as well.

Dimmock looked over it all, and then spent a few minutes measuring the points on the map. Finally, he shook his head.

"There's nothing here," he announced and then almost cringed when Sherlock rounded on him, "Look, don't shoot the messenger, ok? There's nothing to see, because there's nothing here. It's not a rite, ritual or spell web. There are no conjunctions, connections or seasons to explain this sudden spate of theft and ritual."

"He's not lying," Sherlock growled, glaring at Geoff as if it was his fault, "I don't understand. Why is John gone?"

Geoff was saved from having to try to make a response to _that_ - he was certain Sherlock didn't know he was asking for help and reassurance with that tone of voice - when the laptop beeped.

"You've got mail," Sherlock informed the DI and promptly started opening it, "I don't have a printer, so you'll have to examine this on screen."

The crime scene photos were attached, as was the preliminary report. The lab had found that the candles had been adulterated with hair and blood - further testing was needed to provide a DNA sequence, which may lead to the perpetrator - and the animal in the fire had been another kitten, which had been bound with rough twine before it was slaughtered and burnt. There was also a trace of human skin in its mouth - it seemed the kitten had bitten its attacker.

"Rubbish," Sherlock snorted and whirled away in disgust to pace the floor once more. Geoff sighed and glanced at Dimmock.

"I guess we've found the hair, blood and skin taken from the victims you were looking at," Geoff muttered, receiving a bleak nod from Dimmock.

"As well as the burglary files that you found, sir," Dimmock sighed, "This was an attempt at a spell. A failed attempt, but still..."

"So our practitioner isn't very good at magic," Geoff half stated half asked, "How difficult was the spell, and what was it supposed to achieve?"

"That spell is very easy to cast, actually," Dimmock sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He loosened his tie with a grimace and looked at his superior with an air of helplessness, "It's supposed to give the caster a familiar. Something that helps them to cast other, more difficult spells. It's used by the very weakest of our practitioners, because once they bind the familiar to them, it does all the work casting spells on their behalf. It's frowned upon, because you're talking about turning a spirit into an indentured slave and when the spell goes wrong, the resulting havoc can be terrible. In fact I know of one such spirit that escaped its master and killed several people in the area as it fled. Its master was convicted of the deaths and is locked up to this day as a spree killer."

"So there is a weak practitioner out there, attempting to boost their ability?" Geoff summed up and Dimmock nodded.

"No!" Sherlock exploded from the other side of the room, "John wouldn't have disappeared, wouldn't have made my brother agree to help him disappear, just because a weak practitioner is misbehaving! He took down a water demon and committed summary justice on two younger practitioners last year and stayed with me - why would he leave over something so simple? There must be something more going on!"

"True," Geoff conceded, "But whatever it is, the weak practitioner is involved."

"You don't understand," Dimmock interrupted as Sherlock was about to utter some scathing remark, "The spell _didn't work_. That spell _always_ works. It's foolproof: it has to be, because it was designed a long time ago for practitioners who were too incompetent to reach the middling orders of magic without outside assistance. A child of two could cast that spell, provided they were given proper instructions. And the spell was cast in one of the older structures of London - a place _guaranteed_ to have spirits connected to it. There is only one way for this spell to fail - it had to have been cast by a **_mundane_****.**"

There was silence as they absorbed the import of that last statement. Geoff felt as if he'd been doused in cold water. He'd known that there was real magic in the world for the last six months. He'd been uneasy with that knowledge - because it meant that there were forces in the world beyond his ability to police. Knowing that John was a Mage had actually become a comfort to him. If he'd ever been in a situation where he suspected that magic was in play he knew he had the back up of a decent human being who'd do his best to not only resolve the situation, but do so in a way that allowed Lestrade to preserve the law he'd sworn to serve.

How would it feel, then, to know that there was magic in the world and to be powerless against it? Even after all that he'd seen and heard in the water demon case; Geoff had not felt threatened by magic. He didn't need to control it, was comfortable not knowing much about it and had no great desire to intrude upon the community that practiced it. John's status as a Mage was secondary to his status as Geoff's friend, Sherlock's colleague and lover, the doctor that had been to war, the Yard consultant and the decent man who played a wicked game of pool on a Friday night at the pub.

But if you knew about magic, had none and wanted it... that knowledge could be maddening.

"A mundane that wants magic..." Sherlock breathed, "They'd want more than just magic though... tell me, Lestrade, who do we know that loves power and control? Someone that loves to pull strings, have people under his thumb and is completely merciless about it? Someone that sees the people around him as little more than pieces to manipulate on a game board?"

Geoff felt as if he was going to be sick. If Sherlock was right, they were in so much trouble there was no yardstick to measure it, because the man Sherlock was speaking of was a complete and utter psychopath with resources and genius to burn. He was remorseless, ruthless and completely barking.

"Moriarty," the name left a foul taste in his mouth, "He's found out about magic and is trying to get some for himself."

Because the last thing London needed was for the master criminal to be able to wield magic as well. The city would be in ruins within a week at most. There would be no stopping the man, between his mundane and magical connections. If they were right, then John Watson's disappearance made a lot more sense. Sherlock's safety was paramount to John: the Mage would not have been able to shield his lover from the mundane dangers as well as the magical ones. From the fury in Sherlock's eyes it was apparent that the genius had just realised that he'd been left at home while his lover went off to war. When John got home, Sherlock would want to... discuss this with him.

That was not an argument Geoff wanted to witness.

TBC...

Disclaimer - characters and settings as depicted in BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine


	8. Chapter 8

**Sympathetic Resonance**

"What's this?" Dimmock's voice broke the tableau, attracting Sherlock's attention away from his thoughts. Geoff mused that was probably for the best, as the younger man was beginning to look increasingly incensed. It was an improvement on the bewildered hurt that Sherlock had been sporting, but a lot less constructive. Not that anyone would have been able to see Sherlock's distress just by looking at him - he did a remarkable job at keeping up a front in public, but for some reason he'd decided to let Geoff see the more human side of him: an honour that Geoff wouldn't mention to anyone else.

"It's a cold case - murder victim supposedly found dead of an overdose on PCP. He hung himself up on a barbed wire fence and thrashed himself to death," Geoff replied, "Sally Donovan had it out - she was probably looking into it on her own time. The victim was her maternal uncle."

"He was also the Mage of London at the time of his death. You didn't get another one until John came to Baker Street," Sherlock added coolly, "Obviously from the crime scene photo's we can see that certain elements of the scene were staged."

Geoff shot the younger man a tolerant look - John came to London before he came to Baker Street. Then he reconsidered. It was possible that John had decided against pursuing the role of Mage of London prior to meeting Sherlock. The veteran certainly had been quiet and depressed when Geoff first met him, though he'd perked up the longer he spent in Sherlock's company. Not even Moriarty and his bomb had been able to shake the two men apart, despite the betting pool that it would prove to be the final straw for the doctor's tolerance of Sherlock and the mayhem that surrounded him on a good day. While Geoff was musing, the younger DS was flicking through the file quickly, eventually fanning the gruesome crime scene photos out on the floor and squatting over them like an elf dressed in a suit.

"Yes..." Dimmock winced, "And therein lies a tale."

"What?" Sherlock pounced, obviously willing to put up with the younger man if he had information that would help them catch up with John and his prey. Dimmock didn't even move as Sherlock crouched beside him; Geoff had to give him credit for having strong nerves.

"This man was vivisected," Dimmock swallowed hard, a dry nervous click emanating from his throat, "See the scraps of paper and rag attached to the barbed wire? They're spell slips: woven and written spells. Again, this is something that can be done by Mundanes to access a small amount of magic - the sympathetic kind. It's the most common way for a Mundane to enter the world of magic, but it only works if they have to have access to a thaumaturgy lexicon."

"A what?" Geoff wasn't sure that the last two words were even English. Sherlock rolled his eyes and folded his arms impatiently - evidently John had taught him this word.

"Book of spells. Thaumaturgy means to invoke as applied to the supernatural," Sherlock summed up in a dry little voice, "Go on Dimmock."

"Once the Mundane has access to a lexicon they can write the spells they want performed on a piece of paper or rag and burn it. This releases the words into the air and enacts the spell - in theory. It only works with spells that require something called sympathetic magic - basically it's sending good vibes into the universe to try and influence events in your favour. You won't be able to change the fabric of the universe or influence it in any meaningful fashion. Practitioners tend to allow their partners to do this when the Mundane is facing something difficult, like an illness or loss."

"The effect is psychological - it's a placebo," Sherlock summed up, "But why is it significant that these scraps and rags are here?"

"They have to be free - the ashes shouldn't be anchored. These were, so they wouldn't have worked in the traditional sense. It's... really complicated. I could talk to you for hours and still only scratch the surface. Just take it as read that the anchoring of these spell slips is unusual; which raises the question why was it done?" Dimmock frowned and got up, moving away from Sherlock and the pictures.

"Moriarty is a genius," Geoff informed the younger man, "What he doesn't know I'd imagine he'd be able to learn very quickly. He's on a par with Sherlock here, only his leanings are criminal. If he had hold of a thauma-whatsit lexicon then he'd be able to use the contents to his own advantage and possibly even experiment to get some kind of result."

"Mmm," Dimmock mumbled, "I just don't... unless..."

Geoff watched the younger man pale and wondered for a moment if he was going to faint. Dimmock looked horrified and slightly green as whatever thought that had just struck him took root and festered.

"When something magical dies or is destroyed, it releases a surge of magical energy. This energy can be clean or dirty, for lack of a better phrase, depending on the nature of the thing that was destroyed. It's theoretically possible that the surge of energy, if passed through a spell slip, could power that slip beyond sympathetic magic into the middling order... The death of a Mage, especially a ritual one, would release a lot of energy. The stronger the Mage is, the stronger the release of energy. It's never been done before, but that doesn't make it impossible, just untested," Dimmock looked positively ill, "We need to find out how Moriarty got access to a lexicon and what happened to Paul Pierce's as well - his would be much more involved than my own. If Moriarty has Pierce's lexicon then there is a chance that the next time he runs his ritual it will work better."

"Can we tell what the purpose of the ritual was?" Geoff asked, very deliberately not thinking about Moriarty killing John just to tap his magical energies. Sherlock was thinking about that enough for the both of them if his eyes were anything to go by. Eyes were the window to the soul - Geoff had heard that somewhere once, but never had it been so clearly illustrated before.

"I'd have to consult..." Dimmock looked startled when Sherlock leapt to his feet, glaring at the other man with a fury so shocking it was almost a physical presence in the room.

"If Moriarty has hold of a lexicon, then someone from your community is in league with him," Sherlock spat, "How can we trust your contact? Have you a way of ensuring that they aren't reporting to Moriarty?"

"Yeah, I can ask my wife," Dimmock replied dryly, "I'm certain that she isn't in the employ of criminals. If we go now, we'll reach her on her lunch break. She works in the Reading Room at the British Museum."

Geoff blinked. After a moment he caught up with the other two men, wondering if the Librarian's hair was still shocking pink.

TBC...

Disclaimer - characters and settings as depicted in BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	9. Chapter 9

**Cold Comfort**

Geoff shook his head as the pink haired librarian - Alice Dimmock - gave DS Dimmock hell. Not that she was saying much, but there were plenty of glares and the body language was more than adequate to get across her point of view. She didn't like the fact that he'd spoken to Mundanes about magic, no matter that they belonged to? with? the Mage of London - her technical boss. Dimmock was newly married, which compounded the problem as he tried to propitiate his wife's wishes while still carrying through his promise to get further information for the investigation. Geoff was an old hand at managing marital conflicts and knew that this wasn't the way to go. He wasn't going to step in though - agony aunt was _not_ part of his job description, his current care of Sherlock not withstanding.

Sherlock lasted five seconds longer than Geoff's original prediction, which was almost a miracle considering the condition the man was in, then stepped in and ripped into the woman with cold logic and diction. It was nasty, it was cold and it got the job done. There were days when the label of sociopath really did seem to fit the man. His low voiced monologue got them ushered into a small office, with Dimmock hovering protectively over his now pale wife. Geoff shut the door behind them and gave the room a once over. It was small, crowded with shelves and files and books, overflowing to the floor and the desk, almost burying the two computers set up there. There weren't enough chairs, but Sherlock preferred to pace and Geoff leaned against the office door out of the way.

"You said that you think that Paul Pierce was murdered?" Alice asked her husband, "And you want to know who has his thaumaturgy lexicon? It should have gone to his family or, if they were all Mundane, been destroyed."

"Is that the common practice? To destroy them?" Sherlock pounced on the information and Alice nodded, seeming to draw strength from being in her own office, "But why? You'd risk destroying knowledge held only by that practitioner."

"Any form of spell or recipe that had been developed by that practitioner, that hadn't been made part of the public property, is unlikely to work for other practitioners. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and our own ways of working with the world," Dimmock replied, "Can you tell us what happened to Paul's thaumaturgy lexicon?"

"Just a moment," Alice muttered and cleared off a keyboard, typing her query with quick efficiency, tapping a finger idly while she waited for a response. It made a weird sort of sense that there would be electronic records of such things to Geoff. After all, this was the twenty-first century - the days of quill and ink and large dusty leather bound ledgers were long past. Alice's pink hair glittered in the light from the rooms' only window - a small rectangle with thick safety glass that looked up towards street level. Now and then, Geoff could see the shadows of people walking past above them, hurrying around on their normal everyday lives. For a moment, he could sympathise with Sherlock's disdain for the everyday conundrums - what was shopping and filing and banking when there was magic afoot?

"The lexicon should have come to us," Alice said as the computer beeped, the sound satisfied and smug, "It should have been destroyed."

"Was it?" Geoff wasn't hearing a lot of conviction from behind the desk there; neither was Dimmock if the way he leaned over to have a look at the screen was any indication.

"No, it never arrived," he muttered, "Why wasn't it followed up? Who was supposed to be responsible for destroying it?"

"Archie is our main disposal expert - he was in Kenya when all this went down," Alice peered at the screen and rattled off another quick enquiry. All four fingers drummed on the desk as she waited for the reply, this time the computers beep seemed distinctly diffident.

"There was a query from the family about the book - they apparently were allowed to take custody of it," Alice frowned, "The approval was given by Paul Pierce - this is his access code. Paul would have been the only one authorised to send his book to Mundanes."

"But he was dead: look at the timestamp," Dimmock stated the obvious and flinched when Sherlock snarled, driving both hands through already wild hair in pure frustration.

"Moriarty must have gotten hold of his code. Moriarty has the lexicon," Sherlock whirled to face Geoff, "He's trying to learn magic - and he's using a Mage's knowledge to do so."

"He had to have access to a Witch or Wizards book first, though," Geoff rebutted calmly. There was no way he wanted to add to the frustrated energy swirling around the small space they were in, Sherlock and Alice were doing enough of that for ten of them, "Did Paul authorise any other lexicon's to got to Mundane families? Have there been any other deaths in the magical community over the last two years?"

Alice leaned forward and started typing again, her mouth set in hard lines. Dimmock muttered under his breath and pulled out a book from a nearby shelf, flipping through it rapidly.

"What's that?" Sherlock asked, as startled as Geoff was. He was sure that book hadn't been there a moment ago!

"It's ... like a phone book for practitioners," Dimmock muttered, "Only it doesn't just give us a location, it tells us if they're alive or dead as well."

"John's doesn't look like that," Sherlock frowned, "It's thicker, and a different colour."

"Watson has his own directory?" Alice looked up sharply, "That's... they're controlled! If a Mundane was to get their hands on one, it could mean disaster for the community."

"You're welcome to come to Baker Street and look for it. John told me that he had it guarded away from everyone's notice. Not even another Mage would be able to find it. He's got several other books he keeps with it as well. He said he should probably hand them over to you, but he isn't done with them yet," Sherlock shrugged. Geoff grinned - it wasn't only the consulting detective who played fast and loose with the rules at Baker Street. It seemed John was a better match for Sherlock than Geoff had originally thought.

"Here," Dimmock clearly wasn't about to try and police his own community - or wasn't about to buck the chain of command at least, no matter that his wife was fuming behind her screen, "Jude Kinsey - a Witch in Seven Kings. She died three years ago - from a mundane gas explosion in her flat. No magical books were recovered from the wreckage. If she was working with her lexicon when her cooker exploded, chances were it was destroyed."

"Why would she have been using her lexicon and her cooker?" Geoff frowned, and Dimmock shook his head. It was Alice that spoke up, glaring at Geoff as if he'd just suggested something foul or unusual.

"We cook just like anyone else Inspector, and it wouldn't be the first time a practitioner did some research while making dinner. Pierce would have investigated the magical side of things - if there was something off about the situation, there would be a record of it in the archives. And since there's clearly no point in trying to keep you from it, you may as well come with us to look through them," she locked her computer with a quick tap, "We'll check the search results when we get back. This way."

"I needn't remind you that this is not to be discussed with _anyone_ **ever**," Dimmock muttered as they followed his wife down the corridor. Sherlock huffed impatiently but Geoff nodded in an amiable fashion. They'd got the young man into enough trouble as it was today - it didn't hurt to give him this little reassurance.

%&%&%&

John watched as Sherlock stepped impatiently into the archives, followed closely by Lestrade. He wasn't surprised to see them there - he'd always known that if the two of them chose to team up together, putting aside their silly rivalries, that they'd make a team to be reckoned with.

He stood deep in the shadows, confident that Alice and Ben wouldn't be able to detect him at all, and absorbed hungrily the sight of his lover. Sherlock was not as well as he'd have liked - thinner, sleep deprived and slightly manic - but even in this state, the man was everything John had ever wanted and more.

For a moment, he felt a touch of guilt at the strain he was putting on his already high strung lover, but he put that aside firmly. Moriarty was straying into John's world now, something that put him solely in John's sites. It would only be a few more days before he had the man wrapped up thoroughly and could return to Baker Street.

Until then, Sherlock was to be kept safe, and Geoff with him. It was a cold comfort at best, but John was a soldier – he'd take what he could get.

Taking one last long look at the living embodiment of his heart, John slid deeper into the shadows and disappeared.

TBC...

Disclaimer - settings and characters as depicted in the BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Hunter and the Hunted**

John shivered as the wind cut through him, but didn't pause in his steady stride along the alley way. Best not to seem weak along here - the homeless who inhabited this particular part of London had not made the grade for Sherlock's little network, and for good reason. They'd eat their own mother for a chance at a hit - some of them even volunteered to the local drug distributors as test animals on the newer cuts or designer drugs. Sherlock preferred his informants to be sober - they were more reliable that way. John had a sneaking suspicion that some of the denizens of this alley had known his lover through his own drug using days - Sherlock avoided them as a way of staying clean.

Moriarty was in this area. The tracing spells were unanimous in their results; John was working constantly to refine them in order to isolate his prey exactly.

The consulting criminal had first come to his attention the day after he'd met Sherlock. The mad cabbie that he'd shot for the fascinating man that had become his flatmate had screamed the name like a challenge at the thin genius. They'd become friends as time went on, but that friendship had been irrevocably changed at The Pool. Their brush with death had made Sherlock withdraw for a time, unwilling to risk his only friend in the fight against Moriarty. John had thoroughly disabused him of that notion. Moriarty had gone to ground - which John now knew was in an effort to master his stolen information on Magic - and John himself had 'come out' to Sherlock about his own practice of the craft. They'd already been lovers for six months by that point; the knowledge had only strengthened their relationship.

John had not suspected that Moriarty had access to a thaumaturgy lexicon when he'd first met the man, in fact it hadn't been until he and Sherlock became lovers that John realised there was something very wrong in the community in London. He hadn't taken up his role of Mage until After the Pool - his own health and well-being had precluded that. Several curses from Afghanistan had lingered for quite some time - the limp and the hand tremor were testimony to that - so he had made his presence known the day he moved into Baker Street and then done nothing more about magic and its practice for the next few months.

Once he'd decided to become more active in his practice - they needed better protection from harm than the Mundane police force could muster, especially with the way that Sherlock carried on - he'd realised that no one had contacted him about his status as Mage, because London's Mage was dead. One look at the crime scene photos had shown him that ritual magic had been attempted using the mans death to power said ritual, and careful questioning of Sally Donovan - of all people, the sceptical Sally had magical connections - had shown that Paul Pierce's lexicon had not gone to her family.

Neither had Jude Kinsey's. She had been Moriarty's first magical victim, entirely by chance. Her husband had wanted her dead in order to allow him to inherit her modest investment portfolio and run away with his secretary. It was all so sordid and boring, but Jude had not been as subtle as she could have been in avoiding the danger headed her way, which had caught Moriarty's attention. He had actually been present at her death and had taken her lexicon with him.

Whatever else you might say about Moriarty, the man had a first class mind. He'd taken the lexicon seriously enough to be able to decipher its meanings and attempt some of the rituals. Those attempts had called Paul Pierce's attention to him and Moriarty had spent no little amount of time undermining the mans standing in the community as well as isolating him from the Mundane world as well.

All of this had been discovered retrospectively. John had only found the trail leading to Moriarty during the Pool incident. When he'd leapt onto Moriarty's back he'd discovered that the Mundane was wearing a very powerful protection charm. Some careful casting and a bit of research had led John to Jude Kinsey's crime scene and the persecution of Paul Pierce. The teenagers and their misguided attempts at raising a water demon had distracted him for a while, but not long after he'd fully recovered from sending the beast back to where it had come from, John had begun to dig very deep into the darker side of London's magical community, which had led him to the photo's of Paul Pierces death.

John had realised that they had been very fortunate: Moriarty's attempt to capture and store Pierce's magical core for himself had not worked - in fact a Mundane would never be able to do so - but before Moriarty could step up his campaign, using Pierce's lexicon, Sherlock had caught the man's eye.

Not that John blamed him - Sherlock was an eye catcher and well worth attention for a variety of reasons. It was just Moriarty's bad luck that John had gotten to Sherlock first. He had no intention of letting go, either.

"Spare change?" a man lurched out of the shadows at John and he sidestepped smoothly. It was the third time that this particular person had attempted to mug him - each attempt beginning with a request for spare change. John wasn't sure why this man insisted on repeatedly trying to mug him, or why he persisted when the last two encounters had gone along the exact same lines, but he suspected that there was either a mental illness or fear of disobeying someone's command at its root. When his accoster snarled and pulled the knife from his sleeve, John merely pivoted on one foot and kicked the other man hard between the legs. As with every other encounter the man squealed and dropped to the floor, the knife clattering out of reach. It was the third that John had confiscated from him and he was tired of walking to the Thames to throw them in.

This knife was **different**. It had already tasted blood in a ritual... and it wanted more.

"Where did you get this?" John reached down, grabbed the malodorous collar attached to the man he'd kicked and hauled him upright, slamming him against the wall and pushing the knife against the other man's throat, "Tell me where you got the knife and I'll let you live. Or don't tell me and I'll spill your blood all over it."

His voice was cold, indifferent. It almost wasn't an act. He'd been away from his heart for too long - people said that he made Sherlock a better man, but the reverse was also true. Sherlock may have felt that the judgement he'd visited upon those teens on the abandoned Thames dock was deserved, but the rest of the community had been left reeling in shock and outrage. To remove someone's magic without first holding the formality of a trial was almost unheard of - only the fact that he was strong enough to do it to two individuals simultaneously and single handed prevented the community from mounting resistance against him. He'd allowed them to hold a mock trial after the fact - the tribunal had accepted his actions and sanctioned them, at the same time warning him against repeating his actions.

John had chosen not to inform Sherlock of all this - his lover would not have understood. Nor would Sherlock understand that it was himself that held John's baser nature in check. John could not be the man he was without Sherlock's love - and respect. If he ever lost that...

Mycroft had been right to be afraid of John and what he could do.

"H-he g-gave it t-to me! He s-said that I sh-should g-get money f-from you!" the misery in front of him stuttered, "He s-said i-it would p-protect m-me!"

"He lied. Where did you get it?" John pressed the blade a little harder against the skin, feeling its thirst as if it was his own. He smelt the urine that flooded the other man's legs and grinned, tight and feral in his face, tasting victory.

"Warehouse four seven two," the dry whisper ghosted across John's cheeks and he grunted, eyeing the sad specimen in front of him for a moment more before slamming his victims head against the wall hard enough to knock him out for a few hours. Without even waiting to watch the man fall, John turned and walked towards the Thames and the warehouses that clustered around the port.

This man had been given his face and a series of knives, along with a mission to attack John. He was not the only one - John had taken a total of sixteen knives from various men and women over the last few weeks. None of them had been charged. It seemed that Moriarty had finally realised that the newest Mage of London was on the hunt for him and was attempting to lure John into a trap. It had certainly taken the genius long enough to realise that he was being hunted - John had been sending bad luck his way via sympathetic magic for a _month_. He'd only quit Baker Street once Moriarty had finally begun an active hunt for him, not wanting to lure the man back towards his lover.

Whatever damage had been done to him at the Pool, Moriarty had spent his recovery time studying up. John had no doubt that he was walking into some elaborately dressed ritual designed to catch his magic and enslave it to Moriarty's will.

The master criminal had _no_ idea what he was up against.

TBC

Disclaimer - settings and characters as depicted in the BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine


	11. Chapter 11

**Battle is Joined**

Just because he was a Mage, there was no excuse for sloppy surveillance. John had cloaked his presence at the Thames, only minutes after hurling the sixteenth knife into the polluted waters. Even cloaked from Mundane and Magical notice, John had kept to the shadows and back alleys, eventually taking to the rooftops. Moriarty's warehouse stood beside its neighbours meekly. It was completely normal, with no sign whatsoever of human inhabitants, surveillance or monitoring. It was so completely normal that it screamed 'trap'.

John settled himself into the overhang of a nearby building and activated a spell that he'd been wearing ever since he left Baker Street. Mage sight gave him a headache if he wore it for too long, but he wasn't going to walk into a trap unprepared. He'd have to go into the building eventually, but not until he knew exactly what was in there waiting for him and how Moriarty was planning to extract his magic. He'd heard Dimmock and Dimmock reassuring Sherlock and Geoff that there was no way that Moriarty could take or use magic for himself: that was not entirely correct. A man as clever as Moriarty would find a way to wield the passive magic's that were open to him in new and unexpected combinations - in ways that would make him able to access more of the magical realms than any other Mundane could. John had found that practitioners in his community tended towards a touch of arrogance in their attitude towards Mundanes and their ability to wield magic. The entire branch of sympathetic magic was discounted by most practitioners as little more than placebo's for their Mundane partners - a way to pacify them in the face of danger or difficulty.

John had never made that mistake. Sherlock wielded more power than he thought with the small spell strips that he'd attempted from John's lexicon, under John's very careful supervision. With enough study and careful planning, Sherlock would be able to access the lowest orders of magic, using only the passive spell strips and a particular ritual that John had been very careful to keep concealed from his lover. It wasn't that he didn't trust Sherlock, it was that he knew better than to torment his lover with something that would be forever out of reach - morally if not practically. Moriarty had the knowledge and lacked the morals that would keep him safe from harm in this particular arena.

The warehouse was covered with Runes. Moriarty was pretty much restricted to this type of magic - passive acts that required an outside power source: in this case, John Watson and his own magical ability. John had to admit the consulting criminal had done an outstanding job at crafting his trap. Words had more power than most people realised and the words in Paul Pierces' lexicon had more power than Jude Kinsey's. With that lexicon in front of him, Moriarty had written a very careful web all over the warehouse in question. John's mere presence inside the web would activate it and any spell he attempted would power it further. The Runes were invisible to the casual observer, cleverly camouflaged as graffiti tags and old bill posters. John had more than a bit of experience with Rune encrusted traps, which meant that Moriarty was seriously out of luck.

Pulling out the weapon that would serve him best to deactivate and reconfigure this particular trap, John paused for a moment, staring down at the object in his hand. It had been a gift from his lover, one that Sherlock had attributed a great deal of meaning to which John had yet to fathom. Who knew what went on underneath the wild curls sometimes - it was a trackless jungle in Sherlock's head and John had only begun to penetrate the very edges of it. Clicking on the top, John watched the ballpoint pen, encased in titanium, prepare itself for writing. He picked the first Rune that he wanted to alter and began to murmur under his breath, writing in the air before him before breathing out a long warm stream of air, pushing the floating rune across the gap between him and Moriarty's warehouse. His own Runes overwrote and incorporated the first and John smiled for a moment before moving on to the next one.

This was air magic at its finest - something that John excelled at. Elemental magic was intricate and difficult, posing a challenge that most practitioners either avoided or only used on very rare occasions. John very much preferred to use the elements whenever possible, allowing him to work at a distance from his target. When disabling magical traps, that ability was literally a life-saver. Slowly but surely, John overwrote Moriarty's intended trap, taking apart the power Runes and putting them back together under his control. From the power fluctuations within the web, he could tell what affect deconstructing the external layer was having on the internal: he reworked that as well, turning the trap into a containment field. He had no intention of allowing Moriarty to escape with the stolen lexicons, no intention of trapping the Mundane's that Moriarty had in the building with him, no intention of letting the other man leave his would-be trap intact. Moriarty was rather like a poisonous snake - John intended to defang the snake. Whatever was left of the man after that... if he was still alive, John would let him go. The Yard would have little trouble picking him up, or Mycroft's people would.

John breathed the last Rune into life and sent it wafting across to the building opposite him. He felt the subliminal hum as it latched on and took effect. Settling into a more comfortable position, John let the pen rest across his wrist and watched. It didn't take long. Men exploded into motion inside the building, trying to put out the hundreds of spot fires that had spontaneously erupted in response to John's single command. Moriarty's spell strips were igniting into whirlwinds of fire inside the warehouse - water and fire extinguishers would not be able to put them out. John waited patiently while they tried, failed and then bailed. If the situation hadn't been so serious he'd have laughed at the way they boiled out of the building, like ants whose nest had been stirred.

Moriarty was inside still, screaming at them as they fled, which was just the response that John had been looking for. The more off balance the consulting criminal was, the better. Once he was sure that Moriarty was alone with the lexicons, John slipped gently down to ground level and walked calmly into the building to join battle with his foe.

TBC... ('cos I'm just that evil)

Disclaimer - characters and settings as depicted in BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	12. Chapter 12

**Choices Made**

It's not hard to find Moriarty. The screaming tantrum the criminal mastermind was having was not exactly the most subtle thing John had ever seen.

The amulet around his enemies neck writhes and twists in pain - John only takes a moment to call the right spells into place and the leather thong burns Moriarty's neck as it wrenches away from him.

"It's alright, Jude," John whispers, soothing the amulet with gentle fingers. This was the last remnant of Jude Kinsey and her magic alive, deserving of his respect and kindness. She had served Moriarty unwillingly, bound to the man by her own knowledge: it was a moment's work to undo to the binding Runes he'd put in place and set her free, the whirling fires around him flaring higher for a moment in sheer jubilation. John smiled as she caressed his cheek in farewell, nodding to the wordless request that he destroy her captor and her lexicon.

Moriarty knows that the Mage of London is here - the fire and the amulet have been a bit of a give away - and now he is scrabbling for the lexicons he stole in an attempt to reactivate some of his traps. John ignores him for a moment to focus on the myriad of miniature whirlwinds that swirl throughout the building. A moment of thought calls the needed spells to mind and then he is raising his palms, whispering into the flickering darkness. Soon all the whirlwinds are gathered into this space with him and his foe, and John merges them into four pillars, standing in the four corners of the world. They flicker and whirl in a quiet symphony of crackles and hisses, expanding and contracting as if breathing, which they are.

"Hello Mr Moriarty," John says quietly as the other man finally manages to prise the books he had hidden beneath the floorboards free. The lexicons were not capable of active casting themselves, but they were more than capable of _hiding_ when they wanted to, especially from someone who was not their owner, "This is a turn up. Bet you never saw _this_ coming."

They were the words from the Pool - the words that John had been 'forced' to say. In reality he had already rendered the chemicals strapped to his chest inert. He had been working on a way to get out when Sherlock arrived, which had led to some hasty improvisation and a strategic retreat. He was curious to see if Moriarty remembered making his captive - Sherlock's Pet - say them.

"Whoever you are, I will destroy you!" was the cold response. John tutted mildly, moving silently around his pillars of fire, projecting his voice from a different spot, all the better to unnerve the Mundane that was even now wrenching at the cover of Paul Pierce's lexicon. John sketched a quick rune and blew it onto both of the lexicons, sealing them from Mundane hands.

"Did I really make so little of an impression? John? John from the Pool? But I suppose, that was kind of the point," John murmured with mean enjoyment, watching the realisation dawn on Moriarty's pale face. He moved three more steps to the left and chuckled as the other man sputtered and cursed, his hands still wrenching at the now sealed books.

"Sherlock's Pet," Moriarty spat, "The ever inadequate John Watson... sent by your master to do his bidding, I suppose. Had I known that Sherlock was one of Them, I would have..."

"He's not a practitioner," John interrupted, "Sherlock can no more wield magic than you can, Mr Moriarty. I'm surprised at you, really, and a little disappointed. Haven't you worked it out yet? Think hard, maybe it will come to you."

John watched closely as thoughts and memories flickered over Moriarty's face. Ordinarily, the other man would not have been so easy to read, but he was thoroughly off balance and resented it. John watched as Moriarty thought back to the Night at the Pool - how he'd had his men strap John into the bomb, how he'd toyed with John and Sherlock, John's attempt to free Sherlock...

"You wanted him out of the pool so that you could use magic!" Moriarty gasped, "He doesn't know about you! Oh, this is all too delicious."

"Oh, he knows all about me," John purred, "He knows me _intimately_. Did you never wonder why he didn't keep chasing you after that night? Why he ignored whatever petty little crimes you were committing? It's very simple, Mr Moriarty. He was involved with something _much_ more interesting. You _bore_ him."

Moriarty shrieked in wordless fury and threw Jude's lexicon at John. He shot a hand out to arrest its momentum and then directed it to the West, burning it in the purifying fire. The column flared intense white and positively _moaned_ its pleasure for all to hear. John released the Air and smirked unseen at the expression on Moriarty's face. Impotent fury and the beginnings of understanding was displayed for all to see - Paul Pierce had been an easy mark once they'd gotten the PCP into his system, but now Moriarty was facing a Mage in all his naked fury, hopelessly outclassed and beginning to realise it.

"Have you worked out what happened at the Pool yet, Mr Moriarty?" John continued to taunt the man, curious as to his breaking point. He had no intention of allowing Moriarty to leave this warehouse, but if he did it feet first under a coroners blanket, or on his own two feet in custody of the Yard was entirely down to the responses he now gave John, "Surely you don't think that our survival was down to something so Mundane as luck?"

"You were trapped in that vest!" Moriarty protested hotly and John sniggered. Even _Sherlock_ didn't know this little detail.

"A vest full of Play Dough," John replied, "It's a very simple change of chemical to chemical. It took me all of a minute to complete and all the time your _minion_ thought I was _praying._ When Sherlock shot that vest, it didn't explode."

"Yes it did," Moriarty contradicted, "I have the plastic surgeons records to prove it."

The bitterness in his tone was plain enough for all to hear and John smirked again - the man in front of him was extremely vain: it was no shock to hear that he'd spent a small fortune to correct the damage John had caused him by igniting the Air around the bomb vest. He wondered if the surgeon had survived his patient and made a mental note to look into it later.

"Oh, there was an explosion, Mr Moriarty, a very carefully shaped one. All the force and heat went your way, and none of it ours. We walked away from there with only a few bruises and a set of wet clothes. Sherlock believed that the shaped charge in the vest saved us - I wasn't about to contradict him."

The consulting criminal snarled like an animal at bay. John took a breath and readied his pen once more, the slender gift from Sherlock a comforting weight in his hand. He stepped quite deliberately into the space that penned Moriarty, triggering the other mans final action. Army training took over and he had the gun from his enemy's hand, the clip from the gun and the gun in the southern pillar all in the space of five heartbeats. He kept Moriarty between himself and the southern pillar, holding the smaller man easily as he squirmed and wriggled.

"You have a choice to make, Mr Moriarty. I can make you _forget_ this; forget everything you learned with the murder of Jude Kinsey and Paul Pierce. You'll live, albeit in custody, for the rest of your life. Or you can remember it all, with a life expectancy of mere minutes," John spoke his promise in a quiet tone, allowing the other man to hear his intent and gauge his determination.

"I _will not forget!" _Moriarty hissed, "You can't make me!"

"I can," John promised dryly, "Your time is running out, Mr Moriarty. You must make a choice, now."

"I will _not_ forget. Kill me if you dare!" the arrogance in the other mans tone said it all. John looked at the southern pillar and the gun still tumbling in the flames.

"As you wish," he replied, "Goodbye, Mr Moriarty."

The gun went off.

TBC...

Disclaimer: characters and settings as depicted in BBC series, not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	13. Chapter 13

**Explosion**

AN - it's a bit scrappy - this takes place while John is hunting Moriarty and confronting him.

The archives had been a dead end. They'd gone through several searches of the material there, or rather Alice and Dimmock had while Sherlock prowled the shelves examining a range of artefacts and Geoff had followed him nervously, poking him in the kidney whenever he reached out to touch something. They had been unable to find anything belonging to Jude Kinsey or Paul Pierce, despite the fact that the inventory stated clearly that there should be at least one artefact from Jude - a protection amulet - and three from Paul - a knife, an earthenware jar and a small lump of crystal.

Alice had been almost distraught. She'd called the man in charge of maintaining the archives - the ubiquitous Archie - and he'd been just as puzzled by the apparent gaps in their inventory. Sherlock had quivered like a dog on point when Archie showed up and Geoff had taken several long minutes of thought to identify the man as Jude Kinsey's boyfriend.

"Archie McKenzie, you are under arrest for commissioning the death of Jude Kinsey," Geoff had announced and slapped the cuffs on the man before he'd had a chance to react. Archie had gone from politely confused to snarling adversary in the blink of an eye, shouting something indistinct that had Alice and Dimmock flinching. He wrenched hard at the handcuffs and cried out in pain when they bit into him.

"I think he expected them to come off," Sherlock observed dryly. Geoff offered the fuming warlock a smirk of his own and shook his head.

"They've been Mage blessed," Geoff announced in a tone that stated he knew all about it. Actually, John had suggested it, hinting that it would make holding onto practitioners that had broken the law easier. He'd taken Geoff's handcuffs away, along with Sally Donovan's and given them back the next morning. Sally had thought they'd been used in some sort of kinky bedroom game and had threatened to get rid of them - Geoff had promised her he'd replace them and simply pulled a fake switch on her.

Archie was swearing long and loudly now, a phenomenon that was common to criminals that had thought they'd gotten away with their crime. Geoff ignored him and hauled him out of the archives and up to the atrium, where he called for transport back to the Yard. Sherlock followed along unhappily, obviously giving up on finding anything in the archives that would help.

****

It was not hard to break Archie McKenzie. Knowing that they had the backing of the Mage of London went a long way to taking the fight out their suspect and he confessed on tape, in front of a public defender, over the course of several hours. He named Moriarty as the man he'd contacted and revealed that he'd let 'slip' Jude's special abilities. As far gone as the man was, he never once used the word magic, which was for the best as far as Geoff was concerned. His motive for betraying his lover was disgustingly simple - he'd wanted to eliminate his competition for a promotion at work. Geoff made a note to ask Dimmock what Jude had done in the archives at a later date and processed the prisoner.

"This doesn't bring us any closer to..." Sherlock had gone to wait in Geoff's office during the booking process and was slumped behind his desk, checking idly through the Yard's files for any further clues that might give them a location. From the glares being aimed at the consulting detective, it was clear that Sally Donovan had discovered that her biscuit stash was missing. The consulting detective was interrupted by the phone ringing at Sally's desk and her subsequent leap to her feet, one hand scribbling quickly on a file cover.

"Sir!" she shouted as she dropped the phone into its cradle, "We've got a lead on Moriarty! There was a tip called into the switchboard with an address. A couple of uniforms checked it out and discovered a body!"

Sherlock went so pale he was almost transparent and then leapt for the door with Geoff hard on his heels. Knowing that John had been hunting Moriarty alone was not a comfort to either man as they followed Sally's directions to the warehouse by the Thames.

The building looked exactly like its neighbours, covered in meaningless graffiti and tattered bill posters. The area was not a good one, but that meant nothing. Moriarty would have been as comfortable here as in a five star hotel. Anderson and his team were pulling up behind them as Geoff and Sherlock headed into the building, following the directions of the first officers on the scene. In the centre of the warehouse floor, under the grubby skylights, the body of James Moriarty lay on its back, a gun in its hand and a single wound situated directly over his heart.

There was nothing else in the room.

"That's Moriarty," Sherlock's voice had an odd wobble to it, which had Geoff jumping to hold him upright when he swayed.

"Sir? Is he on drugs again?" Sally's sharp voice cut through the air and Geoff shot her such a look that she actually stepped back in surprise. Sherlock was shaking and a bit limp, but Geoff wasn't taking his full weight, so he counted that as a win.

"He's ill," Geoff snapped, "I'm taking him to Baker Street. The body has been positively identified as James Moriarty - when SOCO get in here, warn them that the man liked booby traps and to proceed with especial caution. I'll be back in an hour or so."

The fact that Sherlock didn't argue was not a good sign.

****

It wasn't until they got upstairs that they realised John had returned. The scent of tea was a bit of a give away, as was the battered coat hung on John's usual hook. Geoff noted idly that it would need dry cleaning to get some of _those_ stains out, but was more concerned with locating the missing Mage. While he'd been promising himself that he would avoid the argument that Sherlock had been brooding over for the last twelve days, Geoff knew better than to dump the consulting detective and run.

"John?" Sherlock called and the man himself stepped out of the kitchen with a piece of toast in his hand, looking thin and pale and grubby and so _normal_ that it beggared belief.

"Sherlock," John smiled hesitantly, perhaps sensing that he was in the doghouse, but more likely reading it from the glare that was being aimed his way, "Hello, Geoff. Sorry about the break in."

"Don't mention it," Geoff replied, edging away from Sherlock, "I take it that you were the person that called the tip in?"

"Yes," John nodded, appearing relieved to put the coming argument off for a few more minutes, "And I swept the place clean. There are no traps or anything to harm your team."

At that point Sherlock exploded. The sheer volume of the rhetoric being delivered was enough to render some of it incomprehensible, but Geoff caught enough to get the gist. So did John, if the horrified and betrayed look on his face was anything to judge by. He attempted to rebut a few of the points, and then got angry himself, but the breaking point was Sherlock roaring,

"Get out! _Leave!_" at his retreating back. Geoff winced as the front door slammed and turned to glare at the younger man standing flushed and dishevelled in the front room.

"John promised Mycroft in this very room that only you would be able to drive him from your side. After all you went through to find him... well, I hope you know what you've done," he couldn't disguise the disappointment in his voice, the same tone he used on his children when they let their tempers get the best of them. Shaking his head, he walked down the stairs, but not before he'd seen the dawning of realisation in Sherlock's eyes.

To Be Finished...

(DON'T PANIC)

Disclaimer - characters and settings as depicted in the BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


	14. Chapter 14

**Big Brother is Watching**

AN - you may need a dose of insulin after this!

John walks for four hours - ending up in Woodford Green. He probably could have got there quicker if he had actually intended to walk to Woodford Green from Baker Street, but he wasn't walking at to reach a destination - more walking to forget. The exhaustion and the rhythm kept his mind on the act of walking calmly and not on the end of his relationship with Sherlock Holmes.

He stopped for a moment, staring into the murky depths of Potato Pond. He knew that if he followed the diagonal path across the green he'd reach the common, set between the primary school and the church; from there he'd find the golf course and eventually the countryside. He thought he might like to be surrounded by nature for a while, just walking where the ley lines took him. It would be easier than thinking about Sherlock and his anger.

A dark, deeply nondescript car pulled up beside him and Mycroft Holmes stepped out. John stepped back to stay out of arm and umbrella reach, eyeing the other man with disfavour. He was in _no mood_ for Mycroft's sanctimonious speeches at the moment... or ever again.

"Sherlock is beside himself," Mycroft announced flatly, "Within ten minutes he was trying once more to find you. He's exhausted and more than a little manic. You need to return to Baker Street at once."

"I gave you my word that I wouldn't," John replied wearily, pained to hear that his heart was distressed, "Right there in the front room of Baker Street. I would leave the moment that Sherlock bade me to. I'm sure you heard him do that."

"I also heard Lestrade remind him of that oath, and the subsequent near hysterics that ensued once the DI left," Mycroft frowned, "I don't know what it is about you, John Watson, to have captured Sherlock so completely, but whatever it is, I will not hold you to that oath. Return to Baker Street at once."

John frowned, that contrary side of his nature sitting up in irritation. He took a couple more steps away from Mycroft and jammed his hands in his pockets. Before he could speak, there was a hum, a sharp sting on the back of his neck and the world ballooned wildly out of focus.

"You bastard," John managed as his legs turned to rubber and gave out beneath him. Just before the ground leapt up to smack him in the face, he heard Mycroft's smug response, putting the elder Holmes at the top of his 'to mess with' list.

"My parents were legally married, I assure you."

*****

He woke in his bed. Someone had stripped him, dressed him in the loose track pants and tee he preferred to wear at this time of the year and positioned him carefully on his right side. That same someone was currently spooned behind him, a leg thrust between John's and both arms wrapped tightly around him.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock muttered into John's shoulder, "I wasn't thinking... I didn't mean it..."

"But a part of you did, Sherlock," John sighed, opening his eyes. His bedside table greeted him, as did the late afternoon sunlight. Sleep had been a rare commodity the last twelve days, as he'd been busy leaving ambiguous scent trails for Moriarty to follow and collecting as much information as he could to present a case to Lestrade - if things ever got that far.

"You left me behind!" Sherlock protested, "You should never have done that!"

"I had no choice," John twisted to look at his lover, his chest clenching at the pale complexion, prominent cheek bones and exhausted smudges under those dark, dark eyes, "I would be casting magic almost continuously, not to mention without a moments notice. I couldn't expose you to that."

"But it was _Moriarty_," Sherlock breathed, freeing one hand to clasp John's head in long fingers, "He's..."

"Brilliant," John sighed, "More than a little mad, a genius clever enough to match you and more slippery than a barrel of eels."

"Dangerous," Sherlock corrected coldly, "He tried to kill you once - remember?"

"The vest full of play dough? The explosion of Fire and Air that I shaped to catch only him? I didn't become a Mage overnight, Sherlock. If you'd run when I told you, I'd have been able to put him down there at the pool," John sighed, "You got there early... eager beaver."

"John," Sherlock groaned and buried his head in John's neck. John wriggled onto his back - hard to do with the Sherlock Limpet attached firmly to him - and wrapped his heart in his arms. It seemed that for once, John knew more about what had happened at a crime scene than his lover; oddly enough he felt no desire to gloat.

"Moriarty already had some idea that there was magic in the world when he killed Jude Kinsey - at Archie's request. Archie didn't do it himself because June was stronger than him, and the taking of a life with magic would have affected his own ability to practice, which would be a red flag to everyone around him," John started back at the beginning, "Paul Pierce was not the strongest Mage I've ever known, but he detected the experiments that Moriarty was making with the sympathetic spells in Jude's thaumaturgy lexicon and that led him into Moriarty's path."

"Moriarty tried to use him as a battery to gain more magical ability," Sherlock mumbled. He was rubbing his face in John's neck, like a cat that was reacquainting itself with its Human. John smiled and stroked the lank locks under his hand, making a note to ensure they both took some time to clean themselves up properly. He'd developed a little cleaning ritual for himself and Sherlock that allowed him to pamper the other man without him objecting... it would be a nice way for them to reconnect.

"Yes, but it doesn't work that way - especially when there was no magical ability to begin with. Moriarty may well have managed to understand and manipulate the effects of the Runes in Pierce's book, but they could not give him what he wanted. Through his contact with Archie, he knew there was a new Mage in London and he started leaving Runes where they would be noticed," John sighed and shifted to get more comfortable, his legs were going to sleep under Sherlock's weight. His heart moved reluctantly, giving him a sulky look that John could only smile fondly at.

"I disappeared when it became apparent that Moriarty was trying to lure me out for a 'final showdown' of some sort," John rolled his eyes, "I didn't warn you for the very simple reason that I wanted you well away from him and his madness. He tried to kill you once, my heart. Never again."

"So you killed him instead," Sherlock lifted his head and looked John's face over closely, blushing a little at the term of endearment. John didn't use them often, but when he did he meant them - something that Sherlock had come to realise.

"I gave him a choice - either he allowed me to wipe his memory and live, or keep his memories and die. He chose the latter," John shrugged, not very remorseful about the matter. With Moriarty gone there would be something of a power struggle among the criminals of London, if not the UK, which meant that Sherlock was about to become very busy.

"Will you stay? Will you forgive me? I'll never say that again... not as long as I live," Sherlock's mind had jumped back to their last meeting and the words he had said. John looked at him seriously, tugging at the dirty curls on his lovers head. They'd definitely need to get up and indulge in some personal grooming in a minute.

"I will stay, this time," John said softly, "But mark me well, Sherlock, if you ever say that to me again, not even Mycroft will be able to help you locate me."

"Never again," Sherlock vowed. John kissed his forehead and then shoved him away, climbing out of bed and complaining lightly that his lover needed a bath etc, etc...

He led his lover out to the bathroom, one hand fisted in the others shirt, holding on as tightly as he knew how.

Finished

Disclaimer - settings and characters and depicted in BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


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